Fat Financial package and incentives available to recruit geeks for Internet of Things

Installments

Do you personally  know of any geeks who want to join a wow wow wow company? That's 3 wows. My "ask" is to review the gory details, and spread the word.

Comrade Carl Mark's R&D Department is about to recruit 10 fresh geeks to develop the interface between our newest product and the internet of things. 

The geeks will be tasked with "embedding" some of our existing products' deficiencies into the internet of things, which will enable our existing developers to move on to better and more sexier things, without wasting time on "operability issues".

Many readers of this blog may ask, "why join the company where Gloria works?" There is no need to ask that question. That's why my "positive-thinking" coach told me. He pumps gas and sells herbal cures to supplement his income.

The financial package we offer is truly incredible. All geeks get a fat loan, a Blackberry Passport, a picture of Cynthia Axe at our Health Club doing push ups and an exemption from being fired by text for 2 months. Furthermore, each new recruit will get to view a management webinar from Poland-based based Wiser@work.

The fat loan I was referring to is delivered to each recruit in installments, from the word, stall. Exact details are being worked out by our attorneys.

Our company's core belief is that "to the internet of things, our future clings". What does this mean? It means that HR will stand behind you in the rare case that you encounter difficulties, as it were. 

My Dad, Pierre Elliot used to joke about "standing behind you". However, this blog, and its readers are posh. Some readers have a British accent, or at least speak good English.

Come join us

HR opens In-house coaching academy

Saving money, honey

2018 is less than a wow wow wow year. We will all need to "tighten our belts", said CEO Stan, which is a term Dad used to use all the time after Mom went on a shopping spree. In those days, there was no big data, just a bill from Simpsons (La Baie).

So I decided to cut our coaching expenses.

In 2017, we have spent $600 on coaching. Ms Axe has a reputation coach and Comrade Carl Marks hired a Ukrainian coach to help him understand a Scottish accent. I signed on the invoices in a moment of weakness. 

In 2018, there shall be no coaching budget whatsoever. However, always resourceful, I have opened an in-house coaching academy. As a matter of fact, I opened it last week. The academy certified all our staff to become coaches. This was done in one day.

The academy offered 2 level of coaching certificates.

1-EC (expert coach)

2-CC (chief coach). I am CC and at this time, I have no deputies, as it were.

The certification process for both levels took 5 minutes, including zenga zenga expertise.

Everyone at EC level learnt to ask three questions:

1-What are your goals?

2-What do you plan to do?

3-How can I support you?

I know that this is tough, but it seems people pick it up easily.

Last week I handled one case myself. I had to be creative, as it were, because I was surprised.

Svetlana from Engineering answered the first question saying, "I want to be the Pope".

I replaced question 2 with "Are you Catholic"?

"No", she replied, "My mother is Russian Orthodox but atheist and my father is Jewish".

Then I told young Svetlana that we have no budget to help her convert.

This is called "alignment of expectations coaching." Only CC level coach can do that.

One  final comment:

1. I am hiring coaches to coach my coaches. The price is $150 an hour. Just to be clear-you pay me! There are so many coaches that I am "leveraging" market conditions, as it were.

All recruiters have the same arrogant attitude, because they themselves have the shittiest job that there is

Dear Gloria

To: Gloria Ramsbottom HR

CC: CEO Stan, Cynthia Axe

BCC: Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Svetlana, Svetlana

My dear Comrade Gloria, (VP of the so-called HR function)

You look great today. No one has legs like yours, Gloria. And don't think I do not notice your new posh British accent. Together with your mastery of big data, you are the cats' pyjamas, my dear Canadian comrade.

Nevertheless, in a spirit of comradeship, here are my supportive comments on level of substandard recruitment support that my heroic R&D department engineers get from the ladies of HR.

My beloved engineers say that too many worthy candidates are turned down, for no reason, kibinimat. That explains all of our schedule slips. I can back this up with 2 truckloads of big data.

I spoke to 7 engineers to get input-Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Natalie, Svetlana and Svetlana, all of whom expressed disgust at the need to impress the young and brainless HR clerk, Ms Cynthia Axe who, "could not get a job even in the Moscow subway as a homeless beggar," to quote one of the Vlads. 

One of the two Svetlanas claimed that "all the recruiters have the same arrogant attitude, because they themselves have the shittiest  job that there is, and thus they are so vindictive."

I want to inform you that we do not need recruitment services any longer. I have empowered my team to use social media, cronyism and friendships to beef up our engine power.

Spasiba for reading this missive.

Comrade Carl Marks

10 things I expect from a perfect resume

b brief

I got a letter from a (male) fan in New Zealand, who wrote me: 

• "Dearest Gloria, The HR managers in NZ tend to be quite clerical, so I need some global input from you. Can you give us your vision about how to write proper resume? By the way, I love your use of the term "as it were", as well as your shapely legs. Fondly, Bernard. " 

Here is my answer.

Dear Bernard,

There are 10 basic components that I look for in a resume, which is a French word.

1) Does the candidate see HR as a strategic business partner?  Nothing is more critical than this. Look for signs of deference.

2) Does the candidate accept the fact that we "retire" people by text, in line with our core values of digital dominance.

3) Does the candidate speak perfect English preferably with a posh British accent (especially for HR and Sales roles)?

4) Can the candidate feign understanding of big data?

5) Is the candidate desperate enough that salary negotiations will be short?

6) Does the candidate whinge about flying night flights in economy class and taking buses from the airport?

7) How dominant is the candidates` spouse about work work life balance?

8) Does the candidate resist digital detox, even if the vendor is French?

9) Does the candidate have a passport to give me for safe holding? Does he have a return ticket to his tribal homeland? Does he eat normal food?Is the candidate mildly diverse, without special needs? (like having an Italian or Jewish name)

10) Does the candidate have any talent that we need to manage?

Bernard, I appreciate your recognition of my talent. Please spread the word about my site to your regional neighbours. My Dad, Pierre Elliot, said that New Zealand is "way off the map".

Gloria

The HR piece

Here's your pet, Juliette

I resigned once! 

Juliette Caesar, the former VP of Sales, and CEO Stan had spent most of the day in a meeting to "set up expectations" about how to "move forward" in Sales. 

Juliette  focused on product quality issues while Stan tried to push "quality growing pains" aside. 

For lunch, Stan's personal chef, K Ray Beauregard-Goldstein (who has mixed ethnicity), prepared the regular cost effective lasagna for Stan while Juliette asked for a Caesar salad, with some grilled chicken.  At 1400 (2pm) Stan texted me to join them for dessert. I love French vanilla ice cream, which was not available malheuresement, which means unfortunately.

As I sat with Stan and Juliette, I saw that Stan was smitten by her (just like he was with me, when I joined the firm as his HR business partner.)  

Stan could not take his weasel-like nasty eyes off her legs. This is natural, as it were. (In the "leg department", you take second place to no one Gloria... my gym teacher used to say)

As Stan spoke to me as he sent a series of angry text message to Wifey. "Gloria, Juliette wants to hire 5 engineers for her Sales team as well as a fully dedicated HR business partner, who can report to you "dotted line".

With ultimate cool, and with malice towards none, I resigned. This was such big data that Stan's jaw dropped. He even stopped texting Wifey.

Juliette Caesar smiled at me and said, "Oh Gloria, Stan has told me such great things about you. The HR "piece" is not critical as long as I get a proper level of support from your team".

Stan said, "I am sure you two ladies will be the best of friends". 

As I left the room, Stan started asking Juliette about "the use of cloud and big data to support the sales effort, and mitigate product quality issues."

Juliette lasted 6 months. I am still around. Mais oui!

What language did your ancestors speak?

A fair question

Most readers of this blog know that I have two brothers, Frank and Ernest, who worked for Blackberry, which is a Canadian company.

To be frank and earnest, I do not understand why we received a lawyer's letter, initiated by  a lady candidate whom we turned down for a job in our Global and Sustainable Service Department.

She claimed she was asked 4 unfair questions.

   1) What language did your ancestors speak?

   2) Do you agree that pregnancy interferes with high performance and achieving stretch goals?

   3) If you are married, what food do you cook your husband for supper?

   4) Are the ladies of HR true business partners?

I called our corporate lawyer (who works on a razor thin retainer) and told him that the candidate was probably inventing the entire story. The lawyer played me a tape, and indeed, I heard my own shrill voice doing the interview.

When I think back, this interview took place after a huge argument I had with Chief Nerd Comrade Carl Marks, who took me out for lunch (Au Beau Pain) to reconcile but "talks broke down".

The day of the interview, Comrade Carl brought out the worst in me, claiming that AI and holacracy will eliminate HR. 

Nevertheless, I see no problem with the interview questions that I asked. (Dad always told me that I am very stubborn). 

To get to the top of the HR ladder, my beauty was not enough. I needed to be stubborn, understand big data, develop AI and holacracy to the next level, and embrace cloud computing whilst mitigating DEI.  Mais oui-that's quite a job, if you get my drift.

And there is a drift to get.

Who is the most unpopular employee for 24th straight quarter.

Cynthia Axe heads our Early Bird  Retirement Plan

Cynthia Axe was chosen most unpopular employee for the 24th straight quarter. Ms Axe heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan (aka Load-Shedding) , which has been described by some as "involuntary".

Cynthia commissioned a coach who is supporting "The Rebranding of Ms Axe". 
As part of her branding strategy, Ms Axe started working Sundays as a parking lot attendant. Furthermore she set up a LinkedIn page, and, Axe has asked me and Comrade Carl Marks for a letter of reference.

Comrade Carl wrote: "Cynthia keeps abreast of performance levels and her action is swift and accurate. You can count on her to put skin in the game". Comrade Carl Marks

I wrote: "A certain Cynthia Axe has a zeal for executing her job with vigor, creating a unique user experience.  Axe is an obedient follower and knows an HR thought-leader when she sees one; thus her long term service with me. Her texting skills are above average making her highly employable. Her popularity is a challenge, but she responds well to fear and coaching. Ms Axe is almost as intelligent as the average bot.

Mais oui!

Interns in HR: suggested major focus

Keeping the snake occupied

The "search" for an internal OD, Talent Manager and Training manager has commenced and I have received some semi wow comments on the job description I issued. 

This morning at 9 am,  a certain intern named Samuel Snake appeared in my office. Samuel is the son-in-law of our Chairman, Ed Montpetit-Maplewood. Samuel's first words to me were: 

"A votre service, Ma'am. I heard you are a Canadian. What is my focus for today?"

My initial observation was that young Mr Snake, who is 10 years younger than me, was gawking at my legs. Another observation was "here is a hungry intern whose ambitions needs to be controlled."

My instructions to Snake (Samuel) were crystal clear. I am quoting myself verbatim, which is not a French word.

• *Although you are the only employee in Internal OD and Training, you are not the acting manager."

• *Commission pro bono webinars of 90 seconds each on "Japanese Business Culture", "HR Business Partnership" and "Being Positive, Cheer-leading and Rah Rahing".

• *Update me hourly, to ensure I do not need to micromanage you."

• *Issue 5 "requests for purchase" from training vendors every week; please demand detailed answers (including tools) from vendors and post their detailed answer  onto our "Knowledge Management Database".

• *Never read Allon Shevat's subversive blog.

Hiring an OD change agent-and keeping him on a leash

Name of Role: Head of Training, Talent Management, Organizational Development and Knowledge Management

Reporting to: SVP HR Ms Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux

Role Description: Compliance to the direction I provide

Skills:

• Semi strategic and very tactical
• Slavish loyalty to boss
• Working mother with 3-5 children with no career aspirations
• Proven negotiation skill with hotels
• Proven skills in wow wow wow-ism and rah rahing
• Ability to feign understanding of business
• Native and fluent English skills, with a smattering of French
• Ability to understand the various accents in our Engineering department

Surprised? No need to be! 

Here's how it happened. CEO Stan texted me to come to his office. His wife (Wifey) had just read an article titles "Change From Within"; the article was a case study of a company which was "totally turned around" by a program driven by an internal "change agent" in HR. 

Stan gave me the article to read (it is a one pager) and immediately told me: "Let's give this a try, Ramsbottom". 

Then Stan added, "Chairman Ed's son-in-law, young Samuel Snake, appears to be a good candidate for setting up such a department "under your auspices, Gloria".

I reminded Stan about something he preferred I did not know (that has to do with him and a certain Ms Cynthia Axe). 

Ever the flexible CEO, Stan said, "As you wish Gloria. But set up the department and at least use Samuel Snake as an intern. That's an order".

An order is an order. So, I put together the above job description & published it. 

There are now almost 3 thousand people a day who read this blog, even in Indonesia, Scotland, the tip of Africa, Saudi Arabia (mais oui), Germany and even Denmark. Please refer people to me. I will accept a candidate from an offshore location, in line with my core value of "cheap labour".

I don't pay a placement fee, but I am a  pleasure to work with.

Weird job description

Nerds should manage recruitment

To: Stan, CEO; 

From: Comrade Carl Marks, Chief Nerd

Stan,

Recruitment is slow, overly administrative and unprofessional. + they have an attitude problem. We can't continue this way. I need Recruitment to "report into" me. Please fix this with Gloria.

Comrade Carl

                    .....                    .....                    .....

To: Gloria (HR)

From: Stan CEO

CC: Comrade Carl Marks

Gloria,

Fix it. Meet with Carl and end this fiasco.

Stan

                        .....                         .....                     .....

With Stan having set the context, Comrade Carl Marks, the chief nerd, and I met this morning to discuss recruitment issues.

Carl had some Russian music blasting from his I-phone 5.

I took my earphone out so I could be fully attuned to Comrade Carl's needs. Comrade Carl, it appeared, felt a need to stare at my legs as if he was in heat.

Carl rambled on in an unfocused semi associative manner about the job description. 

Carl explained that "on one hand we have rich feature suite and yet, we need a level of account-savvy system architects who can drive clients' expectations in the right direction whilst driving even more coherency in our feature set towards a robust product."

In Pearson High School (in Moose Jaw) and in the "Académie pour l'administration" (Administration Academy) in Montreal, I did not come in at the top of my class. Yet, my teachers always described me as an "street-smart alley cat". Nevertheless, I did not fully understand the requirements that Comrade Carl Marks was describing.

If my Dad were alive, he would tell me to say: "Carl, what the f--k are you talking about"? But I am in HR now, which is a very dignified role, so I cannot talk like that.

I put on my thinking cap and solved Carl's problem. Here is what I said:

" Carl, can you turn down the foreign music for a second? Merci. My dear Comrade Carl, I think you need a dedicated HR project manager for to recruit this position for you. I will take Hugh White off Diversity until you get what you want. You are my client. I want to please you, Comrade Carl. Hugh will manage your account in my name".

As I finished appeasing Carl, Moshe, Sanjay, Igor and Svetlana burst into the room. Igor and Svetlana were talking in Russian, Sanjay was reading the Joseph George Daily Newspaper, and Moshe was texting on 4 phones.

Carl said, "OK Gloria, whatever. Just don't micromanage him. You do not trust anyone, kibinimat. But let's give it try! Spasiba."

I took out my earphone

How to break into HR and start a wow career

Almost never be non discrete

I gave a lecture "How to Break into HR and start a wow career" this very morning to a Community College. The audience was a secretarial course, interspersed  with a few people from  a Purchasing and Supply Chain course. 

This was the ideal milieu to lecture to. Milieu is a French word.I delivered the lecture by Skype, as I was driving into work. (I was texting at the same time, on 2 phones!)

Here were the main points of what I said. They are like 10 commandments, although I do not frequent houses of worship.

1. Love of people is almost absolutely critical, and pleasing your boss is even more critical, without an `almost``.  If your boss views  people as spare parts, then he needs to watch a webinar on soft skills.
2. Texting is the essence communication. Texting (sending sms) is a mission critical skill for an HR manager. 400 words a minute on a Blackberry Priv is industry standard. 
3. COPensation and travel policy can be relegated to Finance because no one is ever happy and people need to love HR.
4. Big Data, if you ever understand what it is, may, or may not, be important. I think big data is erotic.
5. Designing Voice Menus for HR services is more important than texting.
6. Practice sitting down at a mahogany table, elegantly but with assertiveness. Sit like a ``lady``.
7. Hire someone like Cynthia Axe and pay her well, that your days may be long upon the Earth.
8. Don't use buzzwords; use words with impact like ``paperless``, ``stretch goals``, "leverage", "global", "internet-of-things", "sustainable" all the time.
9. Be discrete.
10. When you hear rumors, text them to your boss, although you must remain discrete.

200 job offers in 24 hours

Mais oui!

Le mieux!

I have been inundated (not a French word) with job offers for very senior positions (EVP HR). I even get offers from Greece. Africa and Norway.

I have had 200 job offers in the 24 hours day; what appears to make the most impression is:

-my coaching certificate in Human Capital Asset Management
-my vendor free OD police-y
-my ax-ecutive skills
-my passion and untamed lust for the human resource 
-my ability to churn 3 mission statements per month
-the concept behind the Involuntary Early Bird Retirement Plan
-my texting skills (400 words a minute) on 2 Blackberry Phones
-the webinar on Virtual Parenting
-my hyphenated half French last name, as if I was born in Ottawa
-my concern for some minority groups (most)
-my re-engagement skills
-my tattoos and no more questions
-my distaste for Allon Shevat, the "so called" OD consultant, who told Stan I was a disgrace
-the fact that I hired a white heterosexual named Hugh White to Head Diversity.